


life makes echoes

by NotAllThoseWhoWander, winchesters



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Misfits AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 17:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1355170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAllThoseWhoWander/pseuds/NotAllThoseWhoWander, https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchesters/pseuds/winchesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arrested for a misdemeanor crime, Grantaire joins a group of teenage miscreants in fulfilling their ASBO-mandated community payback. Despondency, shitty community service activities, and a vindictive probation worker quickly become the least of their worries as the group is struck down (literally) by a storm of unusual proportions. A Misfits AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	life makes echoes

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea while rewatching Misfits, and noticed that the Misfits' superpowers are really just reflections of their personalities. Being a huge nerd, I started wondering what Les Amis' superpowers would be. Thus this fic was born. My sister 'winchesters' quickly jumped in on the action. We'll try to update as often as possible, but with school and whatnot chapters may be coming out about once a week!

_**Grantaire** _

  
There’s a storm coming in, low dark clouds riding the horizon line. Grantaire zips up his fleece, shivering against a sudden and biting wind. He’s hungover, temples pounding, ears roaring as the bus pulls away from the Westcourt Community Centre.

 

It’s a dump of a building—low and shabby, grey concrete, 1980s architecture, very Cold War-bunker. A sign pasted up in the front window reads Childcare Centre Closed Indefinitely.

 

“Shit.” Grantaire grinds his thumbs against his temples, squints against the slant of sunlight fracturing pre-storm clouds. He’s left his ASBO papers at home—some shit that they were supposed to have signed. Or something.

 

With enormous reluctance, Grantaire enters the Community Centre. It’s too airy and too cold, and stinks like disinfectant. There’s something clinical about the sprawl of linoleum tile (green) and bare walls (green-gray) and shuttered help desk. He sees a supervisor, or a gum-chewing young man in a polo shirt masquerading as a supervisor, taping a poster up on the wall.

 

“Hello?”

 

The young man turns around, gives Grantaire brief elevator-eyes. His gaze lingers on Grantaire’s jeans, faded sweatshirt, hang-dog expression.

 

“ASBO group meets in the gym,” he says, and turns around.

 

How did he know? Grantaire thinks, and then nearly laughs humorlessly. It must be obvious, if he’s pegged as a miscreant at first glance.

 

“Thanks.” He follows a long hallway to the florescent-lit gym, where a group of teenagers have already convened in circled-up metal folding chairs. Grantaire counts more than ten, an adult man sitting with folders in his lap. They turn in unison, stare.

 

“You’re late.” File-folder man turns. His posture is ramrod, militant. Grey hair, slight beard, eyes the color of iron. He could be a mercenary, Grantaire thinks. He’s got a look about him.

 

“Didn’t mean to be, obviously.” He puts his hands in his pockets. Two of the kids exchange glances. Grantaire slides into an empty folding chair, between a burly dark-featured kid and a skinny boy with glasses. No one looks at him.

 

“This is a chance,” Steely-eyes says loudly, “to do some _good_ in your community. _Our_ community. A chance to give back. Make reparations for the wrong you’ve done.”

 

“What if we haven’t done any wrong?” A dark-skinned boy with a shaved head and button-up shirt says. He receives a brief, withering look in return.

 

“As previously stated—” the probation worker turns to stare accusingly at Grantaire “—I’m your probation worker, I’ll be addressed as Javert or Mister Javert, and I will be supervising your community service.”

 

“Is _Sir_ Javert an acceptable title?” A boy sits forward in his chair. He’s shockingly handsome, high cheekbones and curly blond hair, and his eyes are full of a fire that seems out of place. Grantaire stares, momentarily transfixed, until his attention’s pulled away by another boy, brown-haired and rakishly handsome, who raises a hand with a mock-prissy smirk.

 

“How about _Master_?”

 

Javert opens a folder with unnecessary roughness. “If you can’t handle Mister, Javert will suffice. Everyone pass your forms forward, please.”

 

“Shit,” shaved-head boy scrounges in a backpack. “I’ve forgotten mine.”

 

A chorus of _me too_ ’s rises. Javert’s eyes twitches.

 

“Does _anyone_ have a single form for me?”

 

Four hands go up.

 

“Pass them up.” Javert collects the forms silently, stacking them inside the folder. “What are your names?”

 

“Joly.” The skinny kid to Grantaire’s right says softly.

 

“Musichetta,” a short girl in a hijab says.

 

A gangly kid with reddish hair and freckles introduces himself as Marius, then blushes.

 

“Combeferre.” A tall boy with shaggy hair and wire-rimmed glasses says. He’s handsome in an easy, bookish way.

 

“You’re all examples today. Positive examples.” Javert looks around, making eye contact with Grantaire, with the handsome blond kid, with a dark-haired girl whom Grantaire recognizes at once as Éponine Thénardier, a fellow miscreant. “You’d all do well to be a little more like Joly, Musichetta, Marius and Combeferre.”

 

Marius blushes even darker.

 

“Introduce yourselves quickly.” Javert glances at his watch. It looks expensive.

 

Grantaire quickly loses track of names—Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Bahorel—paying attention only to the striking, curly-haired youth across from him.

 

“Enjolras,” the boy says when his turn comes. “I’m Enjolras.”

 

 _Enjolras_. Grantaire turns the name around in his mouth, silently. It’s a good name, solid on the tongue. He tries not to smile and fails. Nobody notices, anyways.

 

_______________

  
  


It’s painting benches.

 

“Fuck this,” Éponine says. “I mean it. This is bullshit.”

 

She holds the thick paintbrush loosely, swabbing carelessly at the iron bench.

 

“This weather is getting really nasty,” Musichetta murmurs. “It’s _so_ cold.”

 

“I bet Javert would let us freeze to death,” Éponine says. “That fucker.”

 

“I think he’s kind of hot.” Courfeyrac joins in the conversation unasked, having abandoned painting long ago. “In a _bear_ kind of way.”

 

“Uh, the fuck is a bear?” Bossuet asks.

 

“You know, a hot, buff older guy. Like, bad-cop kind of hot. Think Bahorel in twenty years.”

 

Bahorel pulls a face. “Fuck off.”

 

Courfeyrac shrugs, sits cross-legged. “Should we all say what we got done for?”

 

“No,” Grantaire says at once.

 

“Don’t you think that’s kind of private?” Musichetta prudently paints another slat of bench.

 

“No. Let’s say. That way we’ll know who’s done the really screwed up shit.”

 

“Fine,” says Bahorel. “Bar fight. Broke some twat’s nose.”

 

He’s the kind of boy who looks good with a shiner and bruised knuckles, equal parts handsome and scary.

 

“Trespassing,” Combeferre offers, rubbing his hands over his knees. “Went down to the quarry for a drink, the coppers showed up and my idiot friends left me.”

 

Eponine boredly announces that she’s been done in for petty thievery, and then cracks her gum loud enough to startle a nearby gull from its perch. A dreamy, long-haired boy named Jehan tells them that he got caught with weed, and then the circle is coming fast to Grantaire and he wishes that he could fade into oblivion.

 

“What ‘bout you?” Courferyac queries, and everyone’s gaze slides towards Grantaire. He wishes, desperately, that he could disappear. His older sister used to tell him horror stories about people spontaneously combusting, surly any benevolent god would strike him down right now, leaving behind only a smouldering Community Payback jumpsuit and the lingering smell of booze.

 

As if in response to Grantaire’s silent plea, the heavens open up with an earth-quaking boom. Lightning cracks across the dark clouds, and their close proximity to the river is suddenly frighteningly obvious.

 

“Jesus!” Courferyac shrieks, leaping up, as pea-sized hail begins to rain from the sky. Without warning, the unassuming ice crystals become the size of table tennis balls, then fists. The youths scatter, running for shelter beneath the metal awning outside the abandoned Childcare facility.

 

“We should move,” Combeferre says loudly as hail pounds on the tin roof. “It’s not safe to be around metal during a lightning storm. It has conductive properties.” Someone–possibly Bahorel–asks what the fuck ‘conductive’ means, and Musichetta starts banging on the locked door.

 

“Help us!” She’s screaming, voice high and thin with fright. “Please, someone help us!”

  
Grantaire can’t help but wonder, sickly, if this is all his fault–too chicken to admit his own wrongdoings, he’s inadvertently caused a heaven-splitting catastrophe. The thought barely has barely crossed his mind before something akin to an aluminum baseball bat cracks through his skull, and the world goes entirely white. 


End file.
